Who Agreed to a Five Day Work Week?

[mnaz]

Whoever agreed to a five day work week
should be fired right now, posthumously,
because that would never fly today
if we could just get a vote.

Amazing what time we cede.
Go out, conquer this, conquer that.
Such aggression would never fly now
if we could just get a vote.

[saw]

back in the day most workers worked long days
seven days a week....it was the unions that negotiated the 40 hour week
which was a step up...but I do agree it's time to renegotiate
let's vote on it !

[mtmynd]

Years ago I argued that working 20 hours a week at the same pay would assure a happy, healthy workforce and full employment without working at slave labor.

[mnaz]

I know that the enlightened ones among us harbor no regrets-- regrets are useless negative energy. True enough. But this will end up being one of my biggest regrets-- all that time I spent sitting in a friggin office.

40 hours might have been a "good deal" way back when, but we still got boned..

[saw]

yeah, my work life included mandatory overtime which the only good part was time and a half...but very quickly we realize the money is no compensation for compressed discs in your lower back, nor having your knees replaced or being unable to sleep from work stress.....

there are many better models of working...my friends in Germany get 7 weeks vacation By Law....and a week for every national holiday,,,and they have done comparative business studies to the US model that showed the productivity for the same period was equivalent...in other words many Europeans produce the same in less time...the reason being at some point the American worker burns out and his production slows down....so the obvious answer is give your workers more time off...keep them happy, healthy, and engaged....American workers need more sick time that many other nations

In Norway, a woman gets maternity leave with paid salary for one year...paternity leave is 6 months and the dad can use that whenever he chooses...so if he wants to wait until the kid is two years old for whatever reason he may do that and collect his salary.....

point is here that we can do better

[mtmynd]

there are many better models of working...my friends in Germany get 7 weeks vacation By Law....and a week for every national holiday,,,and they have done comparative business studies to the US model that showed the productivity for the same period was equivalent...in other words many Europeans produce the same in less time...the reason being at some point the American worker burns out and his production slows down....so the obvious answer is give your workers more time off...keep them happy, healthy, and engaged....American workers need more sick time that many other nations

In Norway, a woman gets maternity leave with paid salary for one year...paternity leave is 6 months and the dad can use that whenever he chooses...so if he wants to wait until the kid is two years old for whatever reason he may do that and collect his salary.....

point is here that we can do better

When I hear stats like you put out here, SAW, a feeling of anger mixed with nausea come over me. America is such a brainwashed country that aims every bit of profit into the bosses. I had a small e-chat about the friggin fear of socialism we have been told to fear. This is not knowing a damn thing #1 about socialism and #2 the Scandinavian countries that live with it ... countries that again and agian are rated the happiness nations in the world. The U.S rate is the low 20's last I read.

Oh well... at my age I know we'll never ee a good change to truly make america great period.


Thx for the inspiration~

[sasha]

The knee-jerk response the Right gives whenever someone uses the S-word would be comical if it weren't so goddamned infuriating. They wield it like a weapon - the absolute worst thing you can say about someone is to accuse them of being a dreaded Socialist. It's like having the pox, or an STD. You hate socialism? Then get rid of your local fire & police protection. Shut down the schools & libraries. Fire the guys & gals who plow & repair your roads. Cancel your insurance policies. Don't worry about the 1% - they'll do just fine. At least until the rest of us, who do (did, in my case) the actual work, all die off. Then they're fucked.

[mnaz]

The real divide is Public vs. Private IMO. Both the "Right" and the "Left" are heavily in bed with private sector Corporatism, which elects and controls a great deal of our federal government-- it's just a matter of degree. Hard line Corporatists and Privatizationists might go so far as to say: "Yes, get rid of all those public services ... because they could ALL be done better if privatized".. Yes, some on the Right have advocated for privatizing not just Social Security but the Post Office and other services as well in recent years, post-Bill Clinton.

Of course, I'm not sure how the 5-day/40 hour work week fits into all this. I do know there is a general backlash to material obsession and "busy-ness" that's been forming behind the scenes this decade-- maybe as an echo to other like-minded ideas of the past, or maybe on its own, if a few recent articles I've read are accurate.

We live in Material World. Madonna would be proud..

https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-fle ... ket-newtab

"According to Tim Kasser, a psychologist at Knox College and author of The High Price of Materialism, selling what he calls materialist values (the focus on wealth, status, image, and possessions) became commonplace in advertisements of the 1950s. The American dream wasn't freedom anymore, it was freedom with a two-car garage and a fancy refrigerator. The trend ramped up through the 1980s, which should surprise zero Madonna fans, and has continued apace despite countermovements like punk or grunge or early hipsters. Nowadays, commenters sometimes carp about the fakeness of sponsored reviews, but YouTube's Kurt Cobains, people who eschew and look down on sponsorships and brand deals, have mostly faded to quaint, old-internet obscurity.

Not all strictly related of course. Yet it all kinda ties together..